ESPN To Share Results from Emerging Media Lab

ESPN plans to share regular results from its Disney ESPN Ad Lab for emerging media perhaps as early as this summer, Beet.TV has learned.

The Ad Lab tests ad execution and ad models, providing insight into what works and doesn’t work, ESPN’s Artie Bulgrin, senior VP of research and sales development, explained during an interview with Beet.TV at OMMA Video in June in New York.

Disney first announced the lab last year and said during the TV Upfront last month that the lab is now up and running. Already, the media company has measured consumer response to ads on the new ESPN.com video player. The lab tests ad formats for on-air, online, and mobile, relying on biometric measurement to gauge emotional responses to content and ads, ESPN has said. 

Bulgrin said that this sort of data can help solve one of the big overhangs in digital media, mainly the lack of a one-size-fits-all measurement spanning across mediums. “We have great measurement for TV and pretty good measurement for the Internet…but nothing on how it all works together,” he said.

To combat that, ESPN relies on custom research studies for its advertisers to measure ad performance across mediums and campaigns, he said. The network has also conducted research revealing that online video viewing is usually incremental to TV viewing. “We have a best available screen philosophy. If people can’t be watching on TV, they will access elsewhere,” he said.

Daisy Whitney, Senior Producer